Looks like you can detect the previous state and compare it to the next state. You can't detect that the app is closing vs going into the background, from what I can find online, but you can detect if it was inactive (closed), or in the background.

Example from React Native Docs

import React, {Component} from 'react'import {AppState, Text} from 'react-native'class AppStateExample extends Component {  state = {    appState: AppState.currentState  }  componentDidMount() {    AppState.addEventListener('change', this._handleAppStateChange);  }  componentWillUnmount() {    AppState.removeEventListener('change', this._handleAppStateChange);  }  _handleAppStateChange = (nextAppState) => {    if (this.state.appState.match(/inactive|background/) && nextAppState === 'active') {      console.log('App has come to the foreground!')    }    this.setState({appState: nextAppState});  }  render() {    return (      <Text>Current state is: {this.state.appState}</Text>    );  }}

Just ran into this same issue. The answer that's accepted does not actually do what is asked in the OP.

A hacky solution would be to set a flag on the first screen your application opens when opened fresh and to NOT SHOW THAT SCREEN when the app has just been backgrounded.

Not super elegant and I can't show example code, but it fixes my particular issue.

I suggest to use web socket and it will help you to solve your problem, as following :

react native app

import React from 'react';const io = require('socket.io-client/dist/socket.io');const App = ()=>{    React.useEffect(()=>{        // connect to web socket        window.appSocket = io.connect(`<server-origin>/?token=<string>&userAppId=<string>`);        window.appSocket.on('connect',()=>{            // do what you line        })    },[])    ...}export default App; 

express server side

const express   = require('express');const server    = express();const http      = require('http').Server(server);const io        = require('socket.io')(http);io.on('connection',(socket)=>{ // this callback function for each web socket connection    let { token , userAppId } = socket.handshake.query;    if( userAppId ){         console.log(`${userAppId} online`)        socket.on('disconnect',(resean)=>{            console.log(`${userAppId} shut down`)        })    }});

for more details, you can check socket.io